#and he was able to revive the guardian core with his power which is combination of lightning and fire | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mysteriesofmarcy · 1 year

Text

Mystery Monday #36: After Life

From ghosts to Guardians, fleas to frobots, death is not necessarily the end in Amphibia. Let's take a look at why.

Let's start with a list of characters who we know to be living after their death:

The ghosts in the castle basement

Zechariah Nettles

Fleafy

Frobo

The Core and everyone in it

The Guardian

Anne

Now we'll go through each one.

We don't know much about the ghosts in the castle, but we can reasonably assume they are "otherworldly prisoners" caught by the ancient Amphibians as Olivia suggested. But as Marcy pointed out, it really doesn't matter all that much, even for this post.

Zechariah Nettles was known to have spent his days guiding travelers through Amphibia on their way back home. (Not really sure why he wouldn't be guiding them on their way to their destinations, but no matter.) In death he was able to continue his life's work by saving the f'wagon of the family that would soon come to save Amphibia.

Fleafy was revived using magic, implying that other creatures have been known to die and come back to life thanks to that spell.

While technically not killed, Frobo was temporarily destroyed, brought back to life, deactivated, brought back to life again, mostly destroyed, and later upgraded several times. Though he is a robot, and this can be done to robots in our world.

The Core was a form of afterlife for (presumably) all the kings, nobles and scholars of Amphibia prior to Andrias. Though ultimately destroyed, it is known to have been unnatural.

The Guardian seems to represent a good diety that controls all things -- a Disney friendly way of portraying a god -- one that, despite having observed countless worlds over countless millennia, still doesn't know how far human computer technology has progressed. It seems to be the only god in this universe.

And finally we get Anne herself. Anne died and came back to life, and will die again at the ripe old age of 91. We know that it was The Guardian itself who brought Anne back to life.

That, combined with its omnipotence, leads me to believe that it decides who comes back after death. The Guardian decided to create creatures that either are ghosts or turn into them, but turn physical when shown their own reflections. The Guardian decided to bring Nettles back to help guide more travelers through Amphibia, particularly the super important ones. The Guardian decided to create a life giving spell. The Guardian decided to bring Anne back to life.

However, The Guardian seems to be completely at odds with The Core. If The Guardian is a stand-in for God, then The Core is a stand-in for Satan. In fact, as I was writing this post, I started to see how the story of The Guardian and The Core is actually an allegory. The Core uses the original sin that tempted Adam and Eve -- infinite knowledge -- to entice the Amphibians to join it. It has the power to keep people imprisoned inside it for eternity. It has the power to create illusions that make one want to follow it. It will destroy anything in its way in order to be relevant. It even has power to create darkness and emptiness. The Core's entire purpose is to rebel against the natural order, which is run by The Guardian.

Meanwhile, The Guardian appears to be perfectly benevolent, eternal, omnipotent (all powerful), and omnipresent, but also only nearly omniscient and capable of fatigue. Granted, the only reason for those last two was for a joke and for the sake of the story, so I guess they can be forgiven. It's not unlikely that The Guardian had previously lived a life in one of the many universes it now watches over, given that it offered to give its job to Anne.

It's unknown how much control The Core actually had compared to The Guardian since we only see one after the other's final demise. But it does seem to me that everyone who knew about The Core had a choice of whether or not to join it. The real Satan only has power over those who choose to listen to him. So in the same way, The Core only had power over those who chose to listen to it. Satan can attack the followers of God and even temporarily disable us, but is easily defeated by One sacrifice made for all. Similarly, The Core can attack anybody and even temporarily disable them, but can be defeated rather easily by one sacrifice made for all.

So, TL;DR version of this post:

Who stays dead and who becomes undead is completely up to The Guardian.

Being omniscient, The Guardian knows exactly who should be brought back and why.

However, anyone who knows of the existence of The Core has the option to join it instead.

The story of The Core vs The Guardian is, quite literally, a tale as old as time, as it is the story of God and Satan retold.

That's it for this week! I did not expect to write such a long post today. Plus, I am running out of ideas to talk about. Please send in more if you want the series to continue.

But, in any case, see you tomorrow for Top Ten Tuesday!

#amphibia #mystery monday #the guardian #the core

0 notes

st-hedge · 2 years

Text

(Calamity AU, botw era) while scavenging for guardian parts in the gerudo highlands, Ganon shows Link that the guardians he had always thought to be dead can be revived with spark of energy if u know how the mechanisms operate and they still keep imprints of distant memories

1K notes · View notes

thecomicsnexus · 5 years

Text

Final Crisis

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #12 MARCH 1986 BY MARV WOLFMAN, GEORGE PEREZ, JERRY ORDWAY, TOM ZIUKO AND TOM MCCRAW (RE-COLORED VERSION)

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

In Brainiac's starship, Dolphin, Captain Comet, Rip Hunter, Animal Man, the Atomic Knight, and Adam Strange convince the reviving robot that his memory was tampered with to make him forget the Crisis. Admitting that his power is inadequate to battle the Anti-Monitor, he sets course for the world of a more powerful being. On Earth, the Anti-Monitor's visage is seen in the skies all over the globe. He repeats that the Earth is now in the anti-matter universe. His past victories over positive universes are meaningless, he says, because of the super-heroes' efforts to stop him. When he lists Supergirl and the Flash as casualties, Kid Flash demands to know what has happened.

The Supermen scan the globe and watch the populace panicking. Harbinger appears, and teleports them to a chosen destination, then gathers Dr. Light from Japan, leaving Sunburst to defend the island. When Dr. Light states that she caused Supergirl's death, Harbinger replies that the battle had already killed Supergirl, and that the Anti-Monitor's final attack merely gave her a swift death. In the skies, the darkness splits into a million shadow demons, which begin an all-out attack on humanity, and the super-heroes mass to resist them. The Global Guardians team with other heroes to free their native lands from the threat, but the demons' numbers seem endless. The Phantom Stranger summons Dr. Mist to help revive the Spectre who lies comatose. Below, Harbinger has gathered a large group of heroes, along with Pariah and Alex, to lead a final assault on their nemesis. Alex creates a bridge between universes, and they depart near Apokolips.

Brainiac's ship goes into stationary orbit, and he and his guests teleport to the planet, where Darkseid appears and introduces himself.

Back on Earth, the majority of the heroes are still battling the demons. The Dove is slain by a shadow-being as his brother watches in horror.

In Dr. Fate's Salem tower, the magically powered heroes have gathered to pool their shamanistic might. The Earth-2 Green Lantern and Dr. Occult form the nexus of their energy.

On Qward, in the anti-matter universe, Harbinger and the heroes have arrived in the Anti-Monitor's old headquarters. Kid Flash insists on joining them because of his mentor's demise. Suddenly, an image of the Flash appears to him—the last one Barry cast before his death. Wally follows the afterimage to where an insane Psycho-Pirate clutches at an empty uniform. Kid Flash knocks him out, and realizes that Barry Allen is truly dead when Lady Quark finds his ring. Pariah informs them that a great concentration of evil lies before them. They follow to find a towering Anti-Monitor, ready for the final slaughter.

In Atlantis, Aquaman leads his underwater legions against the shadows. Lori Lemaris saves a trapped Mera with a force beam. A demon closes in on her and kills her. In Chicago, Green Arrow of Earth-2 is killed by a shadow. In Philadelphia, Cyborg, the Son of Vulcan, the Vigilante, and the New Wildcat continue rescue operations.

In New Orleans, Shade the Changing Man witnesses the death of Prince Ra-Man. In Skartaris, Travis Morgan leads his forces against the black menaces. In Gotham City, both Clayface II and the Bug-Eyed Bandit perish at the hands of the demons. In Salem, the tide finally turns. The supernatural crusaders send their combined force in a net of energy to gather the demons from the Earth's surface, and bind them helpless in space. Over the Earth, lives have been lost, including those of Kole, Huntress, and Robin, but other lives have been saved. For a moment, the survivors can take stock.

On Qward, the Supermen of Earth 1 and 2, Captain Atom, Lady Quark, Firehawk, Wonder Woman, and other tarot's strike at the Anti-Monitor, but he ignores their blows, feeding on the energy of a nearby star, As Dr Light absorbs the energy of one of the binary suns they are between, the Anti-Monitor feels his power draining away. Alex begins to drain the anti-matter energy away from their enemy. Negative Woman uses her negative-self to bind the Anti-Monitor and inhibit him: then Harbinger leads all the energy-producing heroes against him, Dr. Light blasts him with the energy of a sun, and he falls into the ruins of his fortress. Alex creates a dimensional hole, large enough to enclose the Earth and return it to its proper universe. The heroes follow. The ball of bound demons hover and then fall on the fallen enemy. Thus, the Anti-Monitor absorbs his slaves energies and rises again, while the heroes start to give battle. Wonder Woman is caught in a withering flash of power, and is borne away to an unknown destination. Superman of Earth-1 and Lady Quark vow deadly revenge, but Kal-L knocks them out, and tells Superboy to take them back. Since he has no world and no wife to return to, the elder Superman has the least to lose. Then he confronts the monstrous Anti-Monitor, and batters him. Superboy sends Superman and Lady Quark back through Alex's shrinking body, and turns to aid him. Superman continues his one-man war against the Anti-Monitor, striking telling blows, while the villain, his power waning, absorbs more energy from the anti-cosmos, and blasts him and Superboy. Darkseid, watching the conflict on a viewscreen, proclaims his planet to be endangered if the Anti-Monitor survives, sends a power burst at him through Alex's eyes. The enemy, devastated, is hurled into the core of one of the binary suns. Superman, Superboy, and Alex are stunned to see the spectre of their enemy rising from the sun. Superman smashes into his foe's fiery body, scattering him: the remains fall back into the sun and the star begins to implode.

They bravely await the end and Superman wishes that Lois could have lived to see their triumph. At that, Alex produces Lois from a void-pocket in his body where she had been sent to wait. She tells her husband that she had been to a tranquil world. Alex cannot return them to Earth but he can take them all to this beautiful world. Superman, Lois, and Superboy opt for that choice. The foursome vanish seconds before the exploding sun would have reached them.

Back on Earth, Lyla is explaining facets of the Crisis to Pariah and Lady Quark. Wonder Woman was returned to the clay which Aphrodite and Athena had given life, then spread across Paradise Island.

Time then continued to reverse itself, as the Amazons were returned to their original homeland before they fled Man's World. Zeus brought the homeless Wonder Woman of Earth-2 and her husband Steve Trevor to Olympus, where they could live peacefully. The bodies of Robin of Earth-2, the Huntress, and Kole were never found. All those who died were mourned. In Keystone City, Jay Garrick determined that Kid Flash's illness was in remission, his body chemistry being changed by a blast from the Anti-Monitor. He could again move at super-speed, though only to a maximum of Mach-1. Wally donned Barry Allen's uniform, and announced, "From this day forth — the Flash lives again!"

The Great Disaster will not exist in the Earth's future, but a lost child will be found in Command D. adopted by General Horatio Tomorrow of the Planeteers, and named Thomas. Jonah Jex will be torn from his era to fight in the future, while the Guardians of the Universe must face the first division in their ranks. Thus, Lyla concludes her tale, and Lady Quark and Pariah ask her to help them explore their new homeworld. They leave with her, honoring the memory of their benefactor, the Monitor. And, in Arkham Asylum, the staff discuss a new patient who seems beyond help, straitjacketed in a rubber-lined room. Roger Hayden, formerly Psycho-Pirate, gibbers about Earths beyond numbers, the Anti-Monitor, and the memories, which only he had been allowed to keep.

NOTORIOUS DEATHS IN THIS ISSUE

Anti-Monitor

Dove

Green Arrow (Earth-2)

Huntress

Kole

Robin (Dick Grayson, Earth-2)

Sunburst

Bug-Eyed Bandit

Clayface II (Matt Hagen)

Lori Lemaris

Ten Eyed Man

REVIEW

The ending of Crisis is the only part of it that remains canon after it (as it happened on new earth). Although many things about it will not remain (no one will remember the multiverse, not even the ones that survived it). Same will apply to deaths like Huntress, who will be completely replaced post-crisis.

So, was it worth it? Absolutely. Wolfman’s idea of rebooting the universe every 10 years would have been a great idea, but sales will not always allow for it (this is the reason DC was never able to do a complete reboot, you don’t fix what isn’t broken, namely Batman, Legion of Super-Heroes and the Green Lantern Corps).

As for its legacy, this event is the father of all events. Cross-overs and team-ups have been plenty, not only at DC, since the Golden Age. And while there have been similar events in 1982 and 1984 over at Marvel, they barely had any impact (Spider-symbiote being the one thing to remember). Crisis was a whole different thing. But sadly, it happened at DC, that means that not all the opportunities will be taken seriously.

Crisis offered the chance of a blank slate, but instead, the relaunch was sloppy and as a result, the universe required a soft reboot less than 10 years later. Crisis tie-ins are a good demonstration of how slow DC was to react to what they were doing. They do not match the chapter of the month.

Another interesting example is Wally West, who was restored in the end, with a slower speed, and became the Flash. However, it would take more than a year for Wally to take on his own book. This coincided with Justice League International and the end of Legends. Wonder Woman suffered the same delay as well. There were no plans to what would happen afterwards, because DC wasn’t fully aware of what they just did. They were too busy closing down titles, and the reaction to restart everything was delayed, sometimes by more than 5 years. Fortunately, the man of steel would end the year with one of his most emblematic runs.

As for the story itself, the science makes little sense, but I am willing to forgive those flaws. The essence of the event was to revisit the DCU history, to streamline everything and to showcase every single character they had. It was supposed to launch in 1983, but it had to wait until the 50th anniversary (while a long research had to be done to figure out the full DCU history). This story accomplishes that. The tie-ins... not so much. But Crisis as a story works very well. Without tie-ins.

There is a lot of love poured into it as well, and you can tell. Those final sequences with Alex Luthor, Kal-L, Lois and Superboy-Prime are beautiful and sad at the same time (again, DC would shoot themselves in the foot by desecrating that ending in 2005, but that’s a story for another time).

You cannot imagine another penciler for this story either. George Perez is the god of team-ups. Since then, he had some replacements, most notoriously, Phil Jimenez, but in 1985, it was pretty much him. And the art is so beautiful, and so meaningful, Crisis on Infinite Earths became on of the greatest achievements in comic-book history.

Jerry Ordway had to step in after Giordano and DeCarlo, for reasons I do not know. He was the perfect choice for this event. His style adds some clarity to Perez style, where Tanghal wouldn’t have dared to modify too much. As a result, you get an interesting hybrid. Ordway’s realistic faces, with Perez crazy layouts and detailed backgrounds.

The art in general is something to admire over and over. That scene where the shadow demons break apart and darkness becomes sky... that’s Michael Bay High Octane shit. You are basically watching a disaster movie.

Some of the deaths in this story mean nothing. Losing Green Arrow from Earth-2 or Helena Wayne will not have an impact. But they can seriously affect some readers.

One thing I didn’t mention before, was that New Genesis was actually part of the Crisis, as Darkseid only cloaked Apokolips, but apart from Crisis #10, I haven’t seen anything happening over there in other books.

Now, which version should you buy? All of them.

I grew up reading the spanish adaptation, which was pretty much the original with translated text. Then I bought 1998′s slipcase, which was already re-colored. I really think this one was the best as the wrap-around cover has the full Alex Ross painting. 2015′s deluxe edition includes the History of the DCU, with a new cover by George Perez. Perhaps this one adds more value. There is also a very expensive edition coming at the end of the year that includes all the tie-ins, but as you may have read, not all tie-ins are good or worthy of reading with this saga.

Then I actually recommend the digital version, as this book is so beautiful, you don’t even want to touch it.

I give this story a score of 10

#alex ross #george perez #dc comics #comics #review #1986 #modern age #crisis on infinite earths #harbinger #anti-monitor #the monitor #superman #superboy-prime #the flash #kid flash #wally west

22 notes · View notes

radthursdays · 5 years

Text

#RadThursdays Roundup 02/28/2019

Example of the Ditema tsa Dinoko script, “a constructed writing system designed for the siNtu or Southern Bantu languages developed from antecedent ideographic traditions of the Southern African region”. The script consists of many combinations of brightly colored triangles, circles, and arcs. Wikipedia. Source.

Issues

Atlas of Endangered Alphabets: “My goal is to include scripts from indigenous and minority cultures who are in danger of losing their sense of history, identity and purpose and who are trying to protect, preserve and/or revive their writing system as a way of reconnecting to their past, their dignity, their sense of a way ahead.”

Normcore: “Norms are like the statues of dead leaders: you can’t know whether you are for or against them without knowing which values they support. The very idea that it would be possible to analyze political developments in terms of the decline of stabilizing, trans-partisan norms rather than substantive ideology is a political position. The underlying assumption of those who defend norms is that, at some very deep level, Americans have always agreed on the key issues, above all liberty and equality, and have just had to work out the kinks through the generations. That kind of thinking is a residue of the Cold War, when, as Aziz Rana observed in a brilliant essay earlier this year, the quest for ideological legitimacy in the battle against communism led both parties to suppress their radical wings and converge on a common language of American principles and constitutional destiny.”

Gaming Masculinity. Trolls, Fake Geeks, and the Gendered Battle for Online Culture: “Gaming Masculinity explains how the term ‘gamer’ has been constructed in the popular imagination by a core group of male online users in an attempt to shore up an embattled form of geeky masculinity. This latest form of toxicity comes at a moment of upheaval in gaming culture, as women, people of color, and LGBTQ individuals demand broader access and representation online. Paying close attention to the online practices of trolling and making memes, author Megan Condis demonstrates that, despite the supposedly disembodied nature of life online, performances of masculinity are still afforded privileged status in gamer culture.”

Farm Aid for the Big House: “The USDA Community Facilities program, meant to improve economic development and quality of life, is instead increasingly being used to fund the infrastructure to detain and incarcerate more people in rural counties across the country. In upstate New York, the loans will mean a 30-year investment in local incarceration. And, in northern Florida, an ICE immigrant detention center that doubles as the county jail will remain open for business. ”

An elaborate, curling word drawn in sand in the Avoiuli script. From Wikipedia: “Avoiuli is a writing system used by the Turaga indigenous movement on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu.” Source.

Money

Students paid up to £3,500 to catch potentially deadly diseases for science: “Cash strapped university students are being paid as much as £3,500 to be infected with dangerous tropical diseases including typhoid, malaria and pneumonia.”

Keep Your Kids' Cornflakes Away from the Basquiat!: “When the late Jean-Michel Basquiat said in 1985 that he makes his art “for myself, but ultimately for the world you know,” I do not think that he could have imagined, that one day his art would exist as the backdrop upon which a billionaire’s child would fling cornflakes. But, as the Guardian reports about the world of super yachts, in which nauseatingly rich people hold millions of dollars of famous artwork hostage in the middle of the ocean, this is exactly what is happening.”

Student Loan Relief or Paid Vacation? These Workers Get a Choice: “Starting next year, U.S. employees at insurance company Unum Group will have a choice: The company will put money toward their student loans, if the worker gives up five paid vacation days.”

Yi Manuscripts in Yunnan Museum. “Yi is spoken by between 4 and 5 million people of the Yi tribes of Southwest China”, and is “mainly used for religious, magical or medical texts”. Source.

Direct Action Item

Substitute alternatives for ableist words and terms: "Being aware of language—for those of us who have the privilege of being able to change our language—can help us understand how pervasive ableism is. Ableism is systematic, institutional devaluing of bodies and minds deemed deviant, abnormal, defective, subhuman, less than." There's a list of replacement words in the link. Some favorites: contemptible, insipid, ridiculous, vomit-inducing.

If there’s something you’d like to see in next week’s #RT, please send us a message.

In solidarity!

What is direct action? Direct action means doing things yourself instead of petitioning authorities or relying on external institutions. It means taking matters into your own hands and not waiting to be empowered, because you are already powerful. A “direct action item” is a way to put your beliefs into practice every week.

#radthursdays

0 notes

omginstantpaperbouquetblr · 7 years

Link

By Andrew Levine / Counterpunch.

Photo by Orin Zebest | CC BY 2.0

The Doomsday Clock has been edging closer to midnight since Donald Trump got his hands on the nuclear codes – not for ideological reasons, as would have been the case had Hillary Clinton not blown her chance to become Commander-in-Chief, but because he is morally inert and psychologically unhinged. Giving such a miscreant control over a nuclear arsenal is like handing a troubled teenager a loaded gun.

And although he has yet to score even one major legislative victory after eight months in office, he and the hyper-rich, ideologically driven troglodytes he installed in key cabinet and agency positions have already done grave, perhaps irreversible, harm to America’s feeble efforts to address the catastrophic problem of global warming. Their record on other environmental issues has been similarly appalling.

Trump’s appointments to the federal judiciary have done irreparable harm as well; Neil Gorsuch is only the tip of the iceberg.

Nevertheless, credit where credit is due: to the dismay of guardians of the status quo, Trump has diminished the majesty of the office he occupies and has undermined the moral standing of the United States in the world. He has also done severe, probably irreparable, harm to the Republican Party.

Cutting the imperial presidency down to size is a necessary step in the democratization of the regime. The situation was a little better for a few years after Watergate, but these days there are no significant political forces opposing the powers assumed by the executive branch since the end of World War II. Ironically, with Congress being bought and paid for as it is, this may actually be a good thing.

Ultimately, though, (small-d) democracy is about according “power to the people,” not to the people’s leaders. Therefore, even under present conditions, knocking the office of President down a notch or two has its progressive side.

How ironic that a buffoonish autocrat wannabe would be a means to that end!

How ironic too that the man who says he wants to ‘make America great again’ would do so much to undermine its moral standing throughout the world. Peoples struggling to break free from American domination have reason to be grateful.

Might is indispensible for global or even regional hegemony, but right is more important still. Without it, the kind of cultural influence upon which the exercise of “soft power” depends lies beyond reach. Hegemons must be moral leaders; military stockpiles are not enough.

No doubt, within the military-industrial complex, there are those who are grateful for Trump’s support and largesse. Nevertheless, for the empire’s more thoughtful stewards, his presidency has been a nightmare. If only for this reason, it has not been entirely without redeeming features.

Trump is doing it all unintentionally, of course; and, under his aegis, the cure is worse than the disease. He is, as it were, an accidental nihilist. How pathetic that, in our “bipartisan” political universe, bereft as it is of (small-d) democrats and principled anti-imperialists, this can almost seem, and perhaps sometimes even is, as good as it gets.

Despite the efforts of Clintonite Democrats to revive and then ratchet up the Cold War, the GOP is still the more noxious of our two semi-established, neoliberal political parties. This being the case, whatever harms them is not to be despised.

The benefit is diminished, however, not just because their rival’s malign neglect of the (many hued) working class has made it all but irrelevant, but also because its leaders are disinclined to upset the status quo even to the extent that they can; Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and the others actually seem to view the Donald as a godsend. Why wouldn’t they? Democrats have nothing else to offer, at this point, except milquetoast opposition to Trump. They call it “resistance.”

This is why, to remove the Trumpian menace in the Constitutionally prescribed way, Republicans are going to have to lead the way, and carry it through to completion.

This isn’t going to happen, however, as long as their leaders think that they can get more of what they want by working with Trump than by working against him.

What they want is what the capitalists they work for want; and, after Charlottesville, those capitalists have been running away from Trump like rats fleeing a sinking ship. One would think that this would seal his fate. It doesn’t in this case, however, for reasons peculiar to the Trump phenomenon itself.

Many of the people who thought that Trump would somehow improve their material conditions have already defected, and others will surely follow before long; reality always exacts its toll.

But there seems to be a hard core of what are essentially Trump cultists who will never defect – unless Trump, at age seventy-one, somehow changes his personality completely and stops going rogue.

For them, there seems to be nothing that Trump could do that would cause them to turn on him; not even, as Trump once bragged, were he to shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue.

These are the people who are most likely to turn out in large numbers to vote in the mid-term election next year — because they are energized, while no other segment of the electorate is. Trump cultists are therefore able to call the shots,within Republican ranks.

Meanwhile, what Congressional incumbents want more than anything is their own re-election. They want that even more than they want to serve their corporate and Wall Street paymasters or to advance the causes to which they are ideologically or opportunistically committed.

Thanks to voluntary population sorting (people like living among people like themselves) and gerrymandering, most Republican incumbents nowadays are unlikely to lose their seats to Democrats. However, they could easily lose their seats to challengers in next year’s primaries.

Democrats are, of course, in the same position, but it is unlikely that many of them will be sent packing by challengers running to their left. The will is there, but Democrats are inherently pusillanimous and cautious to a fault. Most incumbent Democrats have little cause to worry.

But Republicans who cross Trump do have cause; they are all but guaranteed primary challenges that they could very well lose.

Therefore, even though Trump is a problem not just for the country and the world but for them as well, expect them to be reluctant to rattle his cage.

In twelve or thirteen months time, when the threat of primary challengers will have faded, the calculation will be different. For now, though, much as they might like to see Trump go, don’t count on many of them doing anything about it.

Needless to say, this could change in the bat of an eye. Life under Trump is life on the edge, and potential tipping points abound. Charlottesville might yet turn out to have been a tipping point; if it is followed by two, three, many Charlottesvilles, all bets are off.

At this point, though, it all depends on the attitudes of likely Republican voters in states that could go either way, and in so-called red states where Republican victories are all but assured.

Even moderate Republicans are not, by any means, people whose good sense and moral decency can be assumed Sadly, however, the fate of the world depends on what Republican voters think.

And that depends, in turn, on the extent to which they are able to resist what might be called WTF fatigue (WTF, that is, as in “what the fuck”?)

This never used to be a factor in our politics, but under Trump it has become a problem for everybody – not only Republicans who are coming to understand what Trump is all about, but everyone else as well.

Thus what seemed outrageous a year or even eight months ago now seems barely worth mentioning. One, comparatively innocent, example will illustrate what I mean.

In 1988, Joe Biden, seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for President, stole a line from the Leader of the opposition Labor Party in the UK, Neil Kinnock, and forever after became “Plagiarism Joe.”

When Melania Trump spoke at the Republican Convention in Cleveland last year, she or whoever wrote the words she read on the teleprompter did Biden one better; she plagiarized from Michelle Obama, the First Lady at the time. For this she was widely derided, though, with Trump himself already flaunting ethical norms more egregiously day by day, the incident got sucked down into the memory hole and was soon forgotten.

Then, last week, she did it again, after the murder of Heather Heyer by the twenty-year old self-described Nazi, James Alex Field Jr. Before Melania’s husband had tweeted a word about Heyer or anything else pertaining to the white supremacist, neo-Nazi assault on Charlottesville, she or her speechwriters put out a statement, taken almost verbatim again, from Michelle Obama. Hardly anyone cared or even noticed.

Why would they? With unbelievable WTF outrages piling on daily, sometimes even hourly, plagiarism is small potatoes.

This is the mentality one has to break through to get to the point where Republicans will turn on Trump. If his presidency continues to disintegrate, along with his mind, this could happen. But since it is up to the likes of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan whether or not it does, the chances, though getting better all the time, remain poor.

***

It is, in fact, more likely that, some combination of financial and legal jeopardy, along with humiliation and embarrassment, will cause Trump to “self-impeach.” This isn’t likely either, however, because Trump is too much of an egotist to cut and run in full public view.

But this is surely what he would do if he still had the sense he was born with, if indeed he was born with any sense at all. Trump has so many more reasons to flee than to stay.

Were he to remove himself from office “voluntarily,” as Richard Nixon did, he would save himself and the Republican Party a lot of trouble. Trump could care less about the Republican Party. But he does care a great deal about himself.

And, with six bankruptcies under his sizeable belt, it is plain that flight is in his nature. To be sure, those bankruptcies were, for the most part, good for his bottom line, even as they were disastrous for his workers, contractors, and investors. But they nevertheless do reveal character traits that could well come into play now.

If, as is likely, the Mueller investigation is closing in on legally actionable crimes committed by Trump, his family members, and his close associates – money laundering, for example — he could probably “negotiate” pardons for all concerned parties in exchange for his resignation, but it is far from clear that even he could finagle any financial gain out of leaving the White House in disgrace. If anybody can, however, he is the one; cashing in by running away is one of the few things he is good at.

Legal jeopardy is not the only consideration that could get Trump to budge; financial losses and mounting challenges to his self-esteem could do the job as well.

If even those CEOs who fled Trumpland after Charlottesville could see how jumping off that sinking ship was in their interest, how much harder could it be to get the Donald to see for himself that his brand is becoming toxic — that his presidency is not only bad for his fellow capitalists and for business generally, but bad for his own businesses as well?

Although he could care less, it is bad for the GOP too. The poltroons in charge of that nefarious operation may be among the last to realize that their party would be better off going after Trump than standing by him, but even some of them are already seeing the light. That is how bright that light has become.

Therefore expect more and more Republican incumbents to realize that their worries about primary challengers in 2018 are misguided — that the harm Trump is doing to all Republicans, themselves included, is a more important determinant of their electoral fates.

Those of them who do have the sense they were born must now be salivating at the prospect of replacing Trump with one of their own, Vice President Mike Pence.

It must surely have occurred to those Republicans how easy it would be to find cause for dumping the Donald; he has given them many times more grounds to work with than they need.

But, again: don’t except Ryan and McConnell et. al. to move against Trump until they have exhausted all other alternatives. After Charlottesville, they were good only for a few pious banalities. It will take a lot more of “Trump being Trump” to get more out of them.

However, don’t despair if it takes Trump a while, or forever, to figure out the message of the writing on the wall. Pence is no prize; compared to Trump, he may not even be a lesser evil.

***

Unlike Trump, who has foul instincts but no fixed ideas, Pence is a bona fide reactionary whose views are retrograde even by Republican standards.

Were he to take over, there would be a groundswell of relief that, for a while at least, would likely break through the gridlock paralyzing Washington. The liberal pieties of cable news pundits notwithstanding, that would not be a good thing at all. With a political class comprised of Clintonite Democrats and Republicans, gridlock has been a blessing. When it goes, if it ever does, it will be sorely missed.

With Trump out and Pence in, Republican reactionaries will be back in business, “independents” will resume their quiescence, and the anti-Trump “resistance” in the Democratic Party will dissipate just as quickly as the anti-war movement did when arch-war maker and Nobel laureate Barack Obama replaced George W. Bush.

On the do-no-harm – or as little harm as possible – principle, immobility under Trump might therefore be preferable to retrograde movement under Pence.

It is impossible to say for sure because it is impossible to know in how much greater peril we are with Trump in charge of nuclear weapons or what the consequences will be of his penchant for bringing out the inner fascist in an appallingly large segment of the American public.

Pence is awful on immigration and his Islamophobic credentials are beyond dispute, but at least he is not an epigone of neo-fascists and the KKK. After Charlottesville, we know, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Trump is.

In the end, though, there are too many incommensurable factors to take into account, and too much indeterminacy, to say, with any confidence, which of the two is worse. The only sure thing is that with either Trump or Pence in charge, expect trouble ahead.

An urgent duty, for anyone with a progressive bone in his or her body, is to work to transform the conditions that make Trump-Clinton elections and Trump-Pence administrations possible.

This is hardly a radical objective, though it might seem so from within the purview of the Democratic Party. We can do better than we did in 2016 – maybe not without transforming the Democratic Party beyond recognition, but certainly within the confines of actually existing capitalism. Even those damnable CEOs whom liberal pundits have been praising so exuberantly since Charlottesville understand this well.

The job has needed doing for a long time — since long before anyone took Trump seriously or even knew whom he was.

Now, with Trump and/or Pence calling the shots, there is another, more immediately urgent task: damage control.

Given the very limited options our not very democratic Constitution accords, and in light of how useless Democrats have become, probably the best we can do at this point, at least while President WTF is still around, is to shame and, whenever possible, shun any person or organization that in any way supports the Trump brand.

In the right conditions, and with the right support behind them, boycotts work.

The CEOs who broke with Trump after Charlottesville understood this; fearing boycotts and other expressions of public disapproval, they prudently put on a preemptive display of moral rectitude.

The Israeli government and its supporters abroad understand this too. Why else would their realization that the BDS movement is growing, despite their efforts to crush it, drive them bat shit crazy?

Would boycotting all things Trump drive Trump crazy too? How could one tell? But even someone as narcissistic and deluded as the Donald could hardly fail to notice the Trump name being transformed from an asset to a liability.

For good or ill, we probably won’t get to see the back of him on this account alone. But the more tied up he is with it, the better off we all will be.

ANDREW LEVINE is the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS (Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is In Bad Faith: What’s Wrong With the Opium of the People. He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy) at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

from Home http://ift.tt/2vfvKWg

#NEWS

0 notes